Referendum may expose fissures across Britain

Leeds, England

WHEN floods swept through northern England late last year, many residents complained that the response from London was far less energetic than when waters engulfed swaths of the south-west almost two years earlier.

Then, as the authorities in London announced plans for huge spending on transport projects, civic leaders in this northern city observed tartly that the amount earmarked for the capital, 274 km to the south, outstripped those for their entire region by a factor of 13.